Biodiversity continues to decline in the face of increasing anthropogenic pressures such as habitat destruction, exploitation, pollution and introduction of alien species. Existing global databases of species’ threat status or population time series are dominated by charismatic species. The collation of datasets with broad taxonomic and biogeographic extents, and that support computation of a range of biodiversity indicators, is necessary to enable better understanding of historical declines and to project – and avert – future declines. We describe and assess a new database of more than 1.6 million samples from 78 countries representing over 28,000 species, collated from existing spatial comparisons of local-scale biodiversity exposed to different intensities and types of anthropogenic pressures, from terrestrial sites around the world. The database contains measurements taken in 208 (of 814) ecoregions, 13 (of 14) biomes, 25 (of 35) biodiversity hotspots and 16 (of 17) megadiverse countries. The database contains more than 1% of the total number of all species described, and more than 1% of the described species within many taxonomic groups – including flowering plants, gymnosperms, birds, mammals, reptiles, amphibians, beetles, lepidopterans and hymenopterans. The dataset, which is still being added to, is therefore already considerably larger and more representative than those used by previous quantitative models of biodiversity trends and responses. The database is being assembled as part of the PREDICTS project (Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems – http://www.predicts.org.uk). We make site-level summary data available alongside this article. The full database will be publicly available in 2015.

The PREDICTS project—Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems (www.predicts.org.uk)—has collated from published studies a large, reasonably representative database of comparable samples of biodiversity from multiple sites that differ in the nature or intensity of human impacts relating to land use. We have used this evidence base to develop global and regional statistical models of how local biodiversity responds to these measures. We describe and make freely available this 2016 release of the database, containing more than 3.2 million records sampled at over 26,000 locations and representing over 47,000 species. We outline how the database can help in answering a range of questions in ecology and conservation biology. To our knowledge, this is the largest and most geographically and taxonomically representative database of spatial comparisons of biodiversity that has been collated to date; it will be useful to researchers and international efforts wishing to model and understand the global status of biodiversity.

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© iForest -Biogeosciences and Forestry IntroductionPatterns of wildlife distribution and abundance have suffered alterations worldwide due to human occupation and related activities (Tilman et al. 2001). The agriculture expansion has replaced the original vegetation and fragmented primary environments, thus affecting wildlife patterns of habitat use (Goodwin & Fahrig 2002, Fahrig 2003. However, studies in agricultural landscapes have shown the use of man-made habitats by the wildlife, such as coffee plantations in Mexico (Moguel & Toledo 1999), banana and coconut plantations in Costa Rica (Harvey et al. 2006, Harvey & González Villalobos 2007, cocoa and Eucalyptus plantations in Brazil (Faria et al. 2006, Lyra-Jorge et al. 2008) and subsistence agriculture in Nepal (Acharya 2006). A great spatial heterogeneity due to different strata and structural complexity exists in native forests, which results in a significant β-diversity (Moffett 2000, Parker & Brown 2000. In an agricultural landscape, a considerable loss of biodiversity occurs where monocultures are spatially more homogenous. However, the environment of Eucalyptus plantations varies dramatically along their commercial cycle. At the first stage, it assumes a bushy structure that later evolves into a forest, which is totally clear-cut at the end of 6-7 years (Turnbull 1995, Wagner et al. 2006. Therefore, these artificial forests present great temporal heterogeneity which may affect patterns of abundance and distribution of resident wildlife, not only for small mammals (Martin et al. 2012), but also for their predators (Verdade et al. 2011). In fact, recent studies show these forests are capable of maintaining a resident wildlife (Penteado 2006, Lyra-Jorge et al. 2008, Dotta & Verdade 2011, Martin et al. 2012). This study aims at assessing the temporal variation of the specific composition and relative abundance of middle to large-sized mammal species found in Eucalyptus plantations in the State of São Paulo, Southeastern Brazil.Eucalyptus plantations currently occupy over one million hectares in São Paulo, the richest and most developed state in Brazil. Their main commodities are the pulp and paper (ABRAF 2013). Together with livestock production, the ethanol agroindustry primarily based on sugarcane and the pulp and paper silvicultural industry primarily based on Eucalyptus are the main agroindustrial sectors of São Paulo state. However, unlike the other two agroindustrial sectors, pulp and paper industries follow Brazilian environmental laws relatively well, due to market pressure posed by certification organizations such as the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC -Verdade et al. 2012). Accordingly, the assessment of the distribution of middle to large-sized mammals in Eucalyptus plantations may give significant advances to both the environmental certification process of this sector and the elaboration of public policies which can result in the inclusion of such landscapes in the context of wildlife conservation. Materials and Methods Study AreaThis study was...